Lotteries have proven to be powerful and lucrative revenue generating mechanisms. In the United States, a majority of states now conduct government-sponsored lotteries which may offer daily and/or weekly jackpots ranging from hundreds to millions of dollars. These lotteries provide a steady source of income for the state to use, for example, to find state educational systems or provide capital for improvements to the state's infrastructure. Recently, many states have partnered to form multi-state lotteries which typically provide even larger jackpots due to the increased number of participants in each lottery.
In a typical operation, a lottery is operated by a central authority with a government-licensed sponsor providing much of the equipment and support necessary to establish, market, and run the operation. Such a central authority typically maintains one or more centralized operations for receiving and processing lottery entries, the entries themselves being sold at remote authorized lottery outlets or terminals.
The purchase of a lottery entry typically requires a visit to an authorized lottery outlet (e.g., in person, over the telephone, or via the Internet), where the process varies depending on the type of game to be played. In a typical Lotto-style lottery game, a player selects one or more numbers, the exact format, quantity and ordinal value range of the numbers being dependent on the type of game. In a “6/49” game, for example, six numbers are selected, each in the range from one to forty-nine. Each set of six numbers entered in a lottery drawing is referred to as an “entry.” The numbers of the entry may be selected individually by the purchaser. Alternatively, many lottery authorities offer a “quick-pick” option whereby, upon request by the purchaser, a random number generator controlled by the lottery authority is used to select the numbers of the entry. In either case, the actual entry request is typically made through the completion of a sense mark form, or “bet slip,” which is a machine-readable paper form having check boxes that are filled in by the purchaser or lottery agent and read by the lottery terminal. The lottery terminal typically prints a lottery “ticket” or receipt which lists each of the numbers of an entry selected by or picked for a player. The lottery ticket also typically includes a drawing identifier indicating which lottery drawing the entries are entered in. This drawing identifier is typically a drawing date, but may also be, for example, a unique number identifying a particular drawing.
As an illustrative example, if a player purchases five “quick-pick” entries in a 6/49 Lotto drawing to be held on Dec. 31, 1999, the lottery terminal first randomly selects five sets of six numbers (five different “entries”) and then prints a ticket listing the five drawing entries of six numbers. The ticket will also typically include some form of drawing identifier such as, for example, the date of the drawing (in this example, Dec. 31, 1999). The player will retain the ticket or receipt until the drawing occurs as proof of entry in the drawing. Information regarding each entry is read by the lottery terminal and transmitted to a central lottery authority which keeps track of all entries in each lottery drawing. Each lottery entry is typically valid for one lottery drawing.
In a typical 6/49 Lotto-style lottery drawing, an entry “wins” an award in the drawing if at least three of the entry numbers match three of the numbers drawn in the lottery drawing. The amount of money won increases dramatically as more numbers are matched. An entry “loses” if, e.g., fewer than three numbers of the entry match the numbers drawn in the lottery drawing. No money is paid to the player for a “losing” lottery drawing entry.
For a further description of Lotto-style lottery games, including the 6/49 game, reference is made to Dr. Z's 6/49 Lotto Guidebook, by Ziemba, Dr. William T., et al., published 1986 by Dr. Z Investments, Inc., ISBN 0-9690097-2-2, incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
While lotteries have enjoyed great success in the United States and around the world, many potential players are still discouraged from participating because the odds of winning are small. For example, in a typical 6/49 Lotto-style drawing where six numbers are picked randomly from a pool of forty-nine numbers, the odds against a player matching all six numbers in one entry is in excess of 13,000,000 to one. It is in the face of these daunting and staggering odds that many potential lottery participants are discouraged from playing more frequently or from ever participating.
Furthermore, the growing popularity of multi-state lotteries has lured players away from single-state lotteries, thereby lowering the revenue streams to these individual states. Thus, in an effort to combat increased competition in the lottery marketplace and bolster sagging consumer interest in the lottery, many lottery organizations have begun offering secondary lottery games associated with their lottery drawings. The secondary drawings give players a “second chance” at winning should the players lose in the lottery drawing. For example, some of these lotteries allow players to mail in their losing entries for a chance in a secondary drawing. The secondary drawing is essentially a “consolation round” drawing where the losers from the lottery drawing are given another chance to win a prize. Typically, in this “consolation round” drawing, the losing entries are all pooled together and one or more losing entries are drawn randomly from the pool.
Unfortunately, these secondary lottery games do not provide the player with any instant gratification since the player still has to wait for the secondary lottery drawing to occur. Further, these secondary games suffer in that the player has a chance of losing twice—once in the primary drawing and once in the secondary drawing. A player's risk of losing in the secondary drawing are similar to the player's risk of losing in the primary drawing. Because of this risk, many players are discouraged from participating in the secondary drawing.
It is therefore desirable to provide a supplementary lottery game, or “meta-game,” in which a player can be guaranteed to win an award if the player fails to qualify for an award in the primary lottery game, thereby increasing participation in the lottery and providing more revenue to the organization conducting the lottery. Preferably, this meta-game provides players with instant gratification by letting them know if they have won or lost the meta-game as soon as the primary lottery game is completed.